April 1, 1914: The Death of Rube Waddell

April 1, 1914: Rube Waddell dies. It was a tragedy. But it was not really a surprise. Indeed, it was appropriate that it occurred on April Fool's Day.

It's hard to describe him, as he was one of a kind. That's probably a good thing.

George Edward Waddell was born on October 13, 1876 in Bradford, Pennsylvania. At the age of 3, he wandered over to a local fire station, and stayed there for several days. He did not attend school very often. He was lefthanded, and strengthened his arm as a child by throwing rocks at birds he encountered while working on his family's land. He also worked on mining and drilling sites as a youngster, which helped his conditioning.

He reached the major leagues in 1897, with the Louisville Colonels. That team was absorbed by the Pittsburgh Pirates, the closest major league team to his home, in 1900, but they couldn't handle his shenanigans, and released him in 1901. The Chicago Cubs quickly signed him, and nearly as quickly released him.

But, on the mound, he was a genius. He pitched 6 seasons for the Philadelphia Athletics, 1902 to 1907, and led both Leagues in strikeouts all 6 times. In 1904, he struck out 349 batters, a major league record until Sandy Koufax got 382 in 1965, and an American League record until Nolan Ryan got 383 in 1973. (For many years, it was recorded as 343, making Bob Feller's 348 in 1946 the presumed record.) The A's won the Pennant in 1902, and again in 1905, a season in which he led the AL in wins, ERA and strikeouts, a feat now considered the Triple Crown of pitching.

He had the best fastball in the game, and Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants, then the best pitcher in the National League, who faced him in the 1905 World Series, said he "had the fastest and deepest curve I've ever seen."

But something was wrong. Early in his career, he left the pitcher's mound in midgame, to go fishing. He had a longstanding fascination with fire trucks, and had run off the field to chase after them during games. He performed as an alligator wrestler in the offseason. He was easily distracted by opposing fans who held up puppies and shiny objects, which seemed to put him in a trance on the mound.

An alcoholic for much of his short adult life, Waddell reportedly spent his entire first signing bonus on a drinking binge. The Sporting News called him "the sousepaw." His eccentric behavior led to constant battles with his managers and scuffles with bad-tempered teammates.

To save money when traveling, teams used to have players not only room together in hotels, but share the same bed. (There is no record of any pair of roommates ever having a gay affair. If it ever happened, it's been kept quiet all this time.) Ossee Schreckengost was the usual catcher for the A's in this period. In one off-season, he went to Connie Mack, the team's manager, treasurer, and part-owner, and said he wouldn't sign his contract for the next season unless Rube's contract included a clause prohibiting him from eating crackers in bed. As any Sesame Street fan can tell you, this interfered with Ossee's sleeping.

Explanations for all this have ranged from retardation to autism, to his having, as one more recent reviewer of his work put it, the worst case of attention-deficit disorder he'd ever known.

By 1908, even the kindly and pitching-concerned Mack could no longer ignore his players' inability to handle Rube's eccentricities, and he sold Rube to the St. Louis Browns for $5,000. That season, Rube struck out 16 batters in a game, an AL record until Feller fanned 17 in a 1936 game. But his drinking got worse, and he last pitched in the major leagues in 1910, finishing 193-146, with 2,316 strikeouts. At the time, this was more than any pitcher except Cy Young.

He did win 20 for the American Association's Minneapolis Millers in 1911. For most pitchers, that would be enough to get another chance in the majors. But Rube was 35, unpredictable, too often drunk, and no longer as healthy as he had been.

In Spring Training in 1912, and again in 1913, Rube was with a team in the Ohio River town of Hickman, Kentucky, when it was stricken by floods. His love of fire departments finally coming in handy, he was reported as saving some lives on both occasions. But he was also reported as having caught pneumonia both times.

This, combined with his drinking, led to him being diagnosed with tuberculosis. He went to live with his sister in the relatively dry city of San Antonio, Texas. But he couldn't recover, and he was placed in a sanitarium in nearby Elmendorf. He died there on April 1, 1914, only 37 years old.

More than half a century later, Casey Stengel, who'd batted against him, used him and Walter Johnson as the templates for comparison with Koufax: "You can forget about Feller. You can forget Waddell. The Jewish kid is the greatest of them all." That Casey was willing to remind people of how great Rube was, so long after he was gone, says something. So does the fact that he was willing to compare Rube to Johnson, Feller and Koufax. Rube Waddell was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.

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April 1, 1914 was a Wednesday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. And the hockey season had ended 13 days earlier, when the Toronto Blueshirts, Champions of the National Hockey Association, beat the Victoria Aristocrats, Champions of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, for the Stanley Cup. So there were no scores on this historic day.

In spite of their eponymous clothing, the Blueshirts are not the same team as the Toronto Maple Leafs.